Mother Who Thought Her Son Was Dead

Chronicle (Levin), 3 July 1948, Page 5

Mother Who Thought Her Son Was Dead

WELLINGTON, July 2. "It was the liappiest shoc.k of my life. I couldn't have moved if the house had been on fire," said 75-vear-old Mrs. Grace Wilson, of Wellington, today deseribing her ^reactions when her son, Mr. Reuben Wxlson, of London, notified as killed during the blitz, telephoned from Sydney last week. Mr.- Reuben Milson left New Zealand 32 years ago as a nkie-year-old soprano. ) This week he returned a successful London business- man and the owner oi a chain of grocerv stores. When the vaudeville company he was with disbanded Mr. Milson tyas thrown on his own resources. He found work and saved enough money to buy a small grocery business in Camberwell, and this was the first of the chain of stores. Mr. Wilson thought that the report oi his death possibly arose from the time when suffering from bomb blast he was collected with the victim's of an air raid and deposited in a mortuary. He was anything but happy when returning consciousness revealed his predicament. "Who are tliese?." he asked the inspecting doctor, and on being told he promptly "passed out again." About this time corfespondence lhpsed as the mpther had been notified officially of his death and received letters of sympathy. Letters from England did not reach New Zealand and Mrs. Wilson senior changed her address.'